Fated Hearts Ch. 05

It was one of those moments you see in movies perhaps: the hero gets the girl and they're wrapped up in their own bubble of romance...happily ever after despite overwhelming circumstances. Thessa and Eric's romance was just beginning.

They stayed at their cliff until the first rays of sunlight appeared in the sky. The morning found the lovers wrapped up in each other. Thessa was warm and safe in her mate's arms, and Eric was content to finally have the person he sought after most cradled in his arms. The night he spent with Thessa was the first time the dreams that haunted him the moment he closed his eyes had not come. Likewise, the restless thoughts that kept Thessa awake at night stayed locked in that place in her mind to which she designated them.

Eric was the first to wake up. A glance at his watch showed that it was past ten. Sighing, he rolled over onto his back, resisting the urge to return to the warm, soft body of his woman. Somewhere a bird chirped, the faint sound of tires on the road reached his well-trained ears, and a faint wind rustled through the trees. Eric rolled over onto his side and waited for Thessa to wake up. Her lips were parted and she was snoring. He smiled and pushed her soft, springy hair behind her cheek. He wondered what she was dreaming about as that sensual mouth that had pleasured him last night curled into a smile and she shifted her legs.

He wanted to feel bad that he had taken her as roughly as he did, but he had the notion that she wouldn't mind feeling sore and achy. She was just as eager to let everyone know they were mates as he was. Eric wet his fingertip in his mouth and trailed it lightly over her nipple, allowing the cooler air to harden the bump into a tight peak. When he was satisfied, he stroked his fingers down her stomach fluttering them over her navel and to the crease of her thigh. He could feel that even in her sleep, her body responded quickly in anticipation of his actions. He pressed his semi-hard member against her stomach, appreciating the moan of acceptance that her sleep –muddled brain allowed her to utter. As he fingered her sensitive nub, he watched her slowly wake up, her eyes already gold.

"Good Morning." Thessa smiled, opening her legs wider for Eric to slide his body closer to her. Her smile turned into a wince. The muscles of her legs were tense and sore from being spread as wide as they had the night before.

"How do you feel?" He asked, noting the pained expression on her face.

"I feel...right." Thessa reached up to stroke his stubbly cheek.

Eric nuzzled her palm, pressing a kiss on the pads of her fingers. "We have to go back now, but we can take our time. I turned off my cell phone so we wouldn't be disturbed, but I know now I must have a full voicemail box." He laughed and got up, pulling her with him.

Thessa tried to hide her disappointment, but knew that their lovemaking the night before had made them closer...not officially mated, but close. The full moon was next week and there was much to prepare. She could let him have this moment just once. Her thoughts must have manifested themselves into a scowl; Eric chuckled and leaned down to press a reassuring kiss on her lips.

"Don't worry, love," he smoothed his thumb over her swollen mouth before leaning in for another kiss. "I'll only be away for a few hours. I know you're hurting from last night. Why don't you go take a long bath in the tub in the mansion?" He smiled down at her, reassured by her nod.

"Sleeping on the ground is hard in human form." Thessa laughed bending down to pick up her clothes and pull them on. She fished a hair tie out of her pocket and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

Thessa and Eric packed up their belongings and drove away from their spot overlooking the city. The drive back was quiet. Thessa fiddled with the radio and sang along with all the songs she liked.

"Oh! I love this song." She sat back and sang along.

She keeps Moet et Chandon
In her pretty cabinet
'Let them eat cake' she says
Just like Marie Antoinette
A built in remedy
For Khrushchev and Kennedy
At any time an invitation
You can't decliiine

Eric laughed as Thessa's warm voice cracked slightly on the high note.

"What? I'm no Freddie Mercury!" Thessa huffed, making Eric shake his head in amusement. She noticed Eric tapping out the rhythm on the wheel.

He tried to mash the breaks as hard as he could. It was again one of those moments. If you took out the sound of Thessa's screams as the mini-van smashed the passenger side door, all you would hear was Queen.

~*~

Car crashes as bad as this usually caused some irreparable damage to the body. That is, if the body in question is human. Thessa's door was the only thing irreparably damaged. Then again, Eric wasn't thinking of the door of his truck when the firefighters and paramedics pulled her almost lifeless body from the car. The other car's occupant was going to be fine.

He knew she was still alive. Had she died, he would have suffered from grief so immediate and severe; it may have killed him. Such was the way of the world according to Fate. The ambulance ride to the hospital was hectic. Eric yelled into his phone for Stephan to send a team to take Thessa from the human hospital into the Were Infirmary at his new residence, and another team to alter some of the memories of the paramedics, nurses and doctors that would be working on his mate. There were very few humans the Supernatural world trusted. They would even have to send people in to alter the memories of the description of himself and Thessa to divert any publicity surrounding the crash. When they arrived at the hospital, he gave a false name.

Like clockwork, the ER team took Thessa and placed her in their own ambulance, driving off, leaving the human paramedics flustered and slightly confused. Eric climbed into Stephan's car as it pulled up moments later. He was on auto pilot, filling Stephan in on the details of everything that happened. All he could hear in his head was the same scream of pain and terror that forced itself out of his soul mate. He didn't even notice that the car hadn't fully stopped yet when he opened the door and all but flew through the doors of the emergency room at the weres' hospital.

The surgery went as smoothly as it could.

The problem with Shifters and Were-animals in car crashes is that the body, in an effort to heal itself, heats up to a temperature hot even for the feverishly warm half humans. Another problem was the constant shift from animal to human. Thessa's problem was the week and a half she spent in and out of a fever in the infirmary shut off from Eric as she shifted in and out of her human body to her wolf's body as her pain was so intense that she lost control over her shifting. They had to tie her down.
It was the worst thing he'd ever witnessed in his life, even worse than the deaths of his parents and siblings. Eric sat helplessly by her bed as she recovered. The day she finally broke out of the fever, the doctor and nurses warily unstrapped her limp form and refreshed her I.V.

~*~

It was the day after Thessa's fever broke, and Eric was anxious for her to wake up. He leaned down to kiss her cheek, relieved by its coolness.

"Eric?" She said faintly, and he straightened up. Her eyes were wide open.

"Oh thank GOD." He shouted. He kissed her again, like a man starving for food and drink.

"Oh, Eric." She cried, her free hand wrapping around his neck to pull him closer.
Thessa barely remembered anything of her recovery except for the haze of pain and the pounding of her wolf's heart as she shifted in and out of consciousness. She remembered her mother launching herself at the alpha and her wolf's almost violent reaction to seeing her mate in danger. It was then that her mother realized that this wolf was truly her daughter's mate. She'd started acting nicer to Eric; even so much as to bring him clothes when he refused to leave her bedside. She remembered nothing else really.
"I thought we'd lost you." He said, the usual joking gone from his eyes, replaced with concern and love. Always love.

"I know." Thessa licked her lips.
"Ahem." The doctor cleared his throat as he made his way into the room.

A low growl escaped Eric's throat at the unwanted intrusion.

"I believe, alpha, you were supposed to let Thessa rest. She went through quite a bit of stress, and needs to --" he was cut off by a louder growl from Eric, which was in turn cut off as Thessa laid a hand on her mate's shoulder, quieting him.

"It's okay, Dennis, go on." Eric quirked an eyebrow, this man knew his mate on a first name basis.

Were it not for the fact that he had to wait for another full moon to mate with Thessa, he would gladly find a way to make his name the only male's name she called aloud.
"Yes, well. Like I was saying...you shouldn't be manhandling her so, mate or not." Dennis smirked.
He was about to say something to her when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

"Is she alright? Never mind, get one of the Betas on it." He hung up the phone and slipped it back in his pocket before turning to Thessa.

"I'm sorry. What was this about manhandling? I'm tired of explaining to people that this is my mate." He growled.

Dennis swallowed hard.

"Your job is to keep my woman alive. Nobody asked for your advice." He gripped the rail on the bed, finding comfort in the hard plastic pushing back into his fingers.

"Eric." Thessa covered his hand with hers.

"Go cool off okay? I'll be here, I promise. Just take a walk and come back for me." She suggested, relieved when he bent down to kiss her softly before leaving.

She didn't know how she knew, but what she did know was that Eric and Dennis in the same room was not a good thing. Never mind the fact that Eric had stationed bodyguards outside her door who could intervene at any time.

"He's noble." Dennis said once Eric was out of earshot.

"He's the Alpha, this is his job." Thessa said immediately wary that she was left alone with this strange man.

"You'll need to sit up so I can check the bandages on your ribs." He said softly, suddenly changing tone. Thessa eyed him warily and sat up, wincing at the pain in her side. She looked Dennis over.

He wasn't ugly.

He was...pretty.

In a soft, well groomed kind of way. She took in the milky whiteness of his skin. So unlike Eric's sun-kissed face.

Whoa, where did that come from? She asked herself and her wolf smiled in her head. She looked back at Dennis. "You've become such a beautiful young woman, Thessa." He said as he unwrapped her bandages. His hand brushed against her arm and she fought the urge to recoil, her stomach turning at the gesture. What's wrong with me? She asked herself. What, human? He isn't your mate. It's only natural.

Her wolf growled impatiently.

"I'm sorry that you got swooped up by the new Alpha. You'd have been such a sweet catch" He said, mild amusement turning the sides of his mouth upward.

"I think that's none of your business, Dennis." She looked back at him, her eyes narrowed.

"Who my mate is or who he would be. You need to show some respect. He's your superior no matter how much my mother bribed you in the past." Thessa watched him closely as the nurse came in and removed her I.V.

"Well, you're completely healed as of today, so we can release you. I will call your mother to come and get you." he rested a hand on hers.

"She won't need her mother to come get her. The Alpha decided to move her to the Alpha's mansion so that I can keep a close watch on her improvement." A strange man announced walking into the room.

Thessa was surprised. She had never seen this man before, but by the way he carried himself, she knew that he had to be important.

"Hello love. We'll bring the wheelchair around and..."

"Wheelchair?" Thessa looked at the man in disbelief.

"Am I paralyzed that I need a wheelchair? I can walk." She wiggles her toes for emphasis.

The man chuckled. "Ah, so this is the spitfire Eric was telling me about. Yes, we do need to get you a wheelchair. You're not fully healed yet and as much as Eric is my best friend, my head would be on a platter by dinnertime if I didn't carry you around on a silk pillow."

"He'll get over it. And who are you by the way?" She asked.

"Where are my manners? Stephan at your service, Madame Alpha." He bowed low, and Thessa couldn't help but laugh out loud, wincing when the dull ache in her side got a little worse.

"He's a jerk, but I love him like a brother." Stephan shook his head and motioned for the guards to bring in the wheelchair.

"This is ridiculous. I can't believe he's putting me in a wheelchair." Thessa grumbled as the nurse came back to help her get dressed before Stephan picked her up and set her gently in the wheelchair.

"Where is Eric?" She asked as they rolled through the front door toward the black SUV waiting in the front.

"He's in the car. I banished him there when he started growling about ripping some poor Doctor's head off." Stephan shook his head and bit back a smile as his best friend leapt out of the van and picked up his mate, totally ignoring Stephan as he gingerly placed her in the car and buckled her seatbelt.

It's always a funny thing to see your friends in love. For Stephan, Eric in love was a welcome relief. Eric has been brooding since his birthday, forever grumbling about being old and having no mate that he didn't even notice the flocks of women who had made a permanent home outside the doors of his quarters in the halls of Galloway Manor: his old pack. When he finally found Thessa, Stephan was happy. After seeing the loving way that they shared looks and touches the two shared, Stephan felt a foreign longing. He climbed into the van, sandwiching Thessa between himself and Eric.

"Oh, thanks by the way Stephan." Thessa smiled.

Eric growled.

"Oh come off it Eric!" Thessa growled back.

"I'm perfectly fine. See?" She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"If you don't believe me you can conduct your own...examination when we get back. Okay?" She smiled as she effectively distracted him.

She tilted her head back and he met her halfway, cupping the sides of her face to give her a deep, searing kiss. His tongue licked along hers desperately taking what she gave him there in the backseat of the car. It hardly mattered that Stephan was there as Eric cupped Thessa's mound through her leggings. She could hardly keep her hands off him either. Her fingers clutched his silky hair, her sore ribs momentarily forgotten as his free hand cupped her head to join them more deeply.

"Okay, love birds, we're here." Stephan laughed.

The light filtering through the open passenger door was enough to snap the lovers out of their bubble. Thessa felt herself grow warm with embarrassment. She accepted Stephan's outstretched hand and allowed herself to be lowered into the wheelchair.

"I still can't believe I have to be in this wheelchair." She grumbled holding her overnight bag on her lap as Eric wheeled her up to the front of the mansion.

"Where's my mother?" Thessa asked, as Eric lifted her out of the wheelchair and marched into the house.

"She's helping to prepare your room. She should be up there I think. You can see her then." He smiled down at her.

"De'ja vu." She laughed wrapping her arms around his neck as he climbed the flight of stairs to his personal chambers.

"Oh right. I had to save you from drowning in a lake when we met right." He joked stopping at the top of the stairs to press a kiss on her forehead.

He opened the door and Thessa's mother stood up from the bed, worry creasing lines in her otherwise youthful face. Eric saw where Thessa got her good looks. The older woman was an older version of his mate. They had the same high cheekbones and wide, expressive eyes. Even the stubborn tilt of Thessa's chin was there. Both seemed to have fiercely protective tendencies. No wonder they argued so often. They were the same person in two bodies.

He didn't miss the accusing glare Thessa's mother shot him when he opened the door and set Thessa down on the bed. He didn't argue. He felt guilty for placing her child in danger. No amount of forgiveness could change the fact that he wasn't paying attention to the road. He was too busy enjoying the moment with his mate that he forgot that he is supposed to be her protector as well as her companion. In that moment, he vowed to never let anything regarding her safety get past him.

"Thessa, baby, are you okay?" She worried, sitting down on the edge of the bed, stroking Thessa's wild hair away from her face.

"I'm fine mama, just fine."

The two women shared a look and Eric knew they'd started speaking telepathically. He left to go back downstairs when he walked right into Nyoko.

"Oh, Alpha, sir I didn't see you there." She bowed her head respectively.

"She's in there with her mother. Want me to tell her you're here?"

"Nah. It's okay; I just came to bring her journal and some other personal stuff for her. You can give it to her for me..." She fidgeted.

"Are you sure? You're awfully jumpy." He laughed, taking the duffel bag from his mate's sister.

"It's girl stuff, Eric, you wouldn't understand."

"Oh my god, you found your mate, haven't you?" He laughed, leaning closer, as if being able to see her face would confirm his suspicions.

"Oh my god, can you shut up?!" She pushed his shoulder as he laughed at her.

"This is rich. Who's the lucky man?" He smiled.

"I don't know yet. I just know that he's here." She confided.

"Well, that's good for you. Actually, I was going downstairs, so you can probably go give this to Thess yourself. I'm going to be back soon."

"Yeah. Look, I'm really sorry about what happened. I know you're still trying to come to terms with the fact that we almost lost her. I still have nightmares about you calling the house from the hospital." She shivered.

"It's fine. She's here now. We're speeding up the mating ceremony actually, so that should be happening in a few days...full moon or not. You know? I can't deal with not being tied to her anymore." He cleared his throat as a servant shuffled past carrying some towels.

"Hey! You! What are you doing up here? I gave specific orders that only the Omegas I chose and my mate's family was allowed up here.

The Omega turned slightly. "Sorry." He muttered nervously before hurrying down the steps

"What was that about?" Thessa said from the doorway of the room.

"I have no idea." Nyoko frowned. The man looked familiar, but she couldn't place his face.

"I brought all your crap." She said feigning annoyance. Nevertheless, she hooked her arm through Thessa's and turned to walk back into the bedroom.

"So tell me about your picnic. You never told me all the juicy details." Eric heard her say from behind the door.

He jogged down the main stairs to find Stephan.

~*~

Once Eric and Stephan had finally finished planning the hurried mating ceremony, it was way past dinner. Eric picked up the empty coffee cups from his large desk and placed them on a tray to leave for an Omega to pick up.